A little realization hit me while I was watching videos about #GamerGate recently. MRAs and #GamerGaters really seem to enjoy depicting themselves as cartoon villains. Above, the skull-in-a-Koolaid-pitcher mascot of MRA videoblogger Bane666au.
Below, a screencap from a video by Mundane Matt, one of the movers and shakers behind the whole #GamerGate thing.
Once the smokey skull intro is over, here’s what you look at the rest of the time when you watch one of his videos:
And while we’re at it, the logo for his channel:
When they’re not depicting themselves as evil skulls with creepy eyes, MRAs and other antifeminists like to identify themselves with fictional villains:
That is, when they’re not posing as supervillains themselves:
Oh, hey, it’s our friend Davis Aurini, from earlier today, in an unphotoshopped screenshot from a video of his.
Oh, and here’s a screenshot from a more recent video of his. Note the skull. That’s right: he owns a freaking skull.
I hate to tell you guys, but I think YOU’RE THE BADDIES.
Yes, I know I’ve posted this video before, but once again it seemed very very apt.
Cloudiah, fantastic collection of poems 😀
Planescape: Torment let you talk down the final boss. In fact, there were several different ways of doing it and odds were good you’d be able to pull off at least one of them if you chose. Technically you could get through almost the entire game by just running past all the enemies and trusting in your immortality and regeneration, but that was pretty clearly not a way that the devs expected you to play.
On an unrelated note: Is there any reason to believe that the skull on Davis’ desk is real?
@Tyler
Christ, you’re a child, you’re an ill-informed child.
I want to wade in here on the Christina Hoff Sommers comment. The education gap she’s so fond off. It works with white boys and guys. But not with Asian boys, who do not underperform compared to girls. What does that tell us. The education system isn’t skewed in favour of girls. It’s skewed in support of children who sit down, keep quiet and learn from the teachers.
Hate to break it to you but there are so many ways to be dark/gritty/edgy without using bigoted cliches. Using tropes like Abducted Damsel With Cleavage and Disposable Prostitute I Can Mutilate With No Consequences is not dark/gritty/edgy at all. In fact, it’s as safe and boring as you can get. You aren’t challenged in any way to seriously think about people and the societies they live in. You’re just being spoon fed commercial crap.
In fact, using such tropes thinking it is dark/gritty/edgy is as sheltered and white as you can get. It’s the exact kind of thing a naive and sheltered person would think is dark/gritty/edgy, a person who has never had his conventions and prejudices tested, a person who never had to rethink how he saw the world and his place in it.
Protip: Being dark/gritty/edgy isn’t about random violence and drug use. It’s about seriously challenging people in their intellectual, moral, and spiritual foundations. It’s about fearlessly tackling the difficult questions about the natures of ourselves, our societies, and the universe we live in.
I must be getting old … “dark, gritty, edgy” just reads as “pretentious, trying hard to be offensive, boring as all get-out.”
Seraph4377 – At least someone does. 🙂
It’s pretty telling that what privileged people often think of as “edgy/dark/gritty” entertainment is more like a reflection of the real-life dangers faced by less privileged people.
This morning I thought of a way for Super Mario Bros. (probably the most famous of the early Mario games) to dispense with the kidnapped lady, yet Mario still has a simple goal: a reason to reach and defeat Bowser.
Bowser has detonated a bomb, and the shockwave is advancing across the Mushroom Kingdom, destroying all in its path. Mario needs to reach Bowser and defeat him before the entire kingdom is destroyed.
The advance of the shockwave is represented by a timer at the top of the screen. Mario has to complete each level within a certain period of time, or else he will be destroyed along with that area. Time carries over between levels – each level is destroyed when the timer reaches a certain point (let’s say level 1 is destroyed 10 minutes into the countdown, level 2 is destroyed 20 minutes into the countdown, but the timer is the same across all levels so if you finish level 1 in 5 minutes, you now have 15 minutes to do level 2).
It would be nice if the shockwave was represented by a wall of fire actually advancing across the landscape, but that’s probably asking too much for an NES cart, so just have the screen explode in fire if the player takes too long on one level.
You do NOT get extra time for the secret areas.
The final count of the timer is added to your final score, giving you a motive to hustle and find a way to collect 100 coins as quickly as possible.
This plot makes just about as much sense as Bowser kidnapping the princess, AND you now have a time-attack mechanic to enhance replayability. Would someone like to tell me why the game could not have been made in this fashion? You know, except for the game designers being lazy and assuming that women make appropriate prizes?
Well, a lot of supposed dystopian/apocalyptic scenarios out there basically consist of “What if all these horrible things already happening to a good chunk of humanity… started happening to white people in developed countries? Le gasp!”
My best friend has a glow-in-the-dark skull. It’s a candle, and he keeps it on his Wiccan altar, particularly at Halloween, when we honor our dead loved ones. Somehow, I don’t think any of these guys would make it through those rites, though…mirror-gazing by candlelight and seeing yourself momentarily transformed into the reflection of an ancestor would probably have them wetting themselves.
And they think they’re so darkly enlightened and edgy and shit. Pppppffffft.
Yeah, I love how the troll was trying to be all patronizing and lecture us on toughness, when he’s probably never experienced anything *close* to real terror, tragedy, or darkness. He gets to put down the controller, turn off the destruction/death/bloodshed, and go have pizza, but an awful lot of people don’t have that option.
On top of that, his argument was completely wrong. There’s no correlation between “likes edgy/gritty stuff” and “has the mental toughness to deal with real-life grit”. Suburban subdivision teens are the biggest audience for horror movies, precisely BECAUSE their real lives are so regimented, safe, and predictable. In adulthood, the fake-macabre starts to lose its appeal as genuinely scary stuff rears its head: bills, financial worries, illness, old age, loss, death. And that’s just if you’re privileged and don’t live in a war zone or impoverished area.
“But hey, even if all these horrible things start happening to white people, I’ll *still* get to be on top of the pyramid!”
@ Orion, a replica skull would have a full set of teeth.
It does have a cut-through so you can look at the internal cranial structures, if you look? It’s the sort of skull sold to medical students…you know, on a budget. But not dental students.
He could well have gotten it second- hand from such.
Bina – Really I think the sitting quietly and looking at yourself in a mirror would be enough to send most of these people into screaming hysterics, no spiritual beings required. Introspection is MISANDRY!
Come on down to my working class neighborhood and try to tell me something about enjoying horror movies, you weaselly little punk. I’ll take you to school.
You want a sense of danger? Put on a skirt and go out on your own. You could not walk a mile in my shoes, keyboard cowboy.
Nequam,
Our family keeps Halloween in our hearts all year long too and it shows. There is a special place in my heart for camp, horror and assorted weirdness.
@Policy of Madness
Have you played Half-Minute Hero yet?
I’m going to try posting this one more time without the source link, in case that’s the problem. Source is Return of Kings,
Argh! Sorry about the blockquotes!! I swear I put in the at all the right spots!!!
“put in the ” without the spaces.
I’m going to go away and die of embarrassment now.
I give up. Monster got me.
More like the Dunning-Kruger segment of the population.
Isn’t the Meyers-Briggs test baloney?
rahu,
Wow.
There are people on the planet who think Ted Bundy was a role model.
That’s so sad.
I’m putting some emergency minion gifs here:
http://33.media.tumblr.com/3c3aaa0494306c74c5dcd2e66670e3e4/tumblr_mqieb3dfID1s39gheo1_500.gif
http://i.imgur.com/1WVTaAf.gif
http://elliejones.blog.com/files/2013/07/min.gif
It is when you use it as a stereotype and binary (like, you know, most binary views of humans). As a spectrum, I found it somewhat useful to describe my own personality traits though. I might just not have read enough about it.
Fuck pseudo-intellectual people who use their perceived intelligence as a stick to bully those they think are less intelligent. And fuck sport fans who don’t recognize the problematic parts of their fan culture.
I dunno, INTP describes me eerily well. In a way that other personality tests and astrology signs don’t even come close to. It seems to work for other people I know too. Usually when I hear that it comes from the “every discipline but hard science is BS” crowd.